Broken Queen
by Kaimelar Falmarin
Summary: One year after meeting Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade has reunited with her smuggling crew. Their journey takes the smugglers to Tatooine, where Mara discovers a prisoner who will change her life, and everything the Republic stands for... forever.
1. Chapter 1

Eyes, an enrapturing emerald, stared intently at the pulsing light of the security camera before her. Swiveling like a dismembered arm on hinges, it bended at the elbow, and moved until its mechanical gaze was pointed right at her. She blinked hard, the phantom image of the security camera's light still lingering behind her eyelids in a sickly green. Pivoting slightly on a booted toe, she inwardly cursed whoever had designed this corner to be so blasted cramp. Suddenly, a streak of red flashed in her peripheral vision. She tensed, beads of sweat springing up upon her brow. The red fluttered again, and she realized what it was- a lock of her own hair. The sweat rolled in rivulets down her face, and outward sign of her internal relief, and a pink tongue darted out to taste the salt. She thrummed impatient fingers on her belt loops, chiding herself at her jumpiness. Her ankles arched against the wall, she leaned back, feeling the cool of Durasteel wall paneling against her scalp. She breathed deep, swallowing the air as though it were wine, wanting it to intoxicate her thoughts with the cool calm that she used to possess. She was getting to old for this sort of thing.

She reached into her breast pocket, and black-leathered hands pulled out a small cylinder, no bigger than her own pinky finger. She shook it slightly, and a deep indigo began to well up in the center of the cylinder. It pooled, and then began to spider its way across the surface. Within a few seconds, it had formed a set of numbers, pulsing a steady blue. She glanced at them, "18:40", and then shook the cylinder once more, sliding it back into her pocket. It was four minutes past time for Trin to have completed his second objective - disabling the security cameras. She dueled gazes with the cameras lense, daring it, just _daring_ it to be operational. If there was anything she could trust, it was Trin. It was her crew. She would have trusted her men with the life of the Emperor, and never doubted them. If firefight ensued, it was her blaster firing in the thick of conflict, and her body shielding those of her fallen comrades. After the battle, it was her who knelt by each of her men, honoring even the lowliest scout for their service with stone-faced reverence. It was no wonder they loved her. She was Mara Jade.

Footsteps echoing in the hallway caused Mara to snap out of her brief moment of contemplation, hand inadvertently falling to the but of her blaster, calloused fingers finding reassurance in its familiar grip. The footsteps grew nearer, their sound irregular, a rhythm as unsettling as the dynamite-laden beat of Mara's own heart. Her eyes, with the acuity of a veteran, scoured the doorway - waiting. The door hissed open, sending rays of green and red to dance about the room as the control panel lit up. Mara flinched away from the lights as though they were blaster fire, easing farther into the shadows of her corner. Her sanctuary. A man sauntered through the door; eyes glazed and mouth gibbering into a hand that wiped spittle from his chin. Mara grimaced, disgusted at the Twi'lek's drunken stupor. Briefly wondering how many credits the Cantina had made that evening, she drew her blaster. Balancing it with her hand, she pulled the trigger - no questions asked.

The blast hit its mark perfectly.

The energy bolt buried itself deep into the Twi'lek's chest, sizzling, causing flesh to bubble and froth like meat upon a fire-pit. The Twi'lek collapsed to the floor, his head-tails temporarily writhing on the ground like the worms they were nicknamed. Until finally, they sat eerily still, the nerves no longer racing in pain. The man's face was the same look of drunken stupor, blood flecking the chin that hung agape in ignorance.

Mara's blaster was considered the most "humane" on the market, so the wound did not bleed. The blast simply created a mocking hole, the flesh peeling away in crisp spirals.

A thought wandered, most uninvited, into her mind. "Either way, a man is dead. How "humane" can it be considered?" she asked aloud.

Mara momentarily marveled at herself, the subtle changes she had undergone in the past months making themselves imminent in her past question. She never would have questioned her killing when she was the Emperor's Hand. Never.

"It's only Skywalker talking." she thought, shaking a head that was crowned with a seldom, bemused smile.

She pocketed her blaster without so much as a conscious thought. With the blaster went the responsibility of the dead man before her. She shuddered, wondering how many times she had pocketed that blaster, hiding away her murders all the same. Old demons reared in her mind, monsters trying to manifest themselves once again.

"No," she thought, puncturing each word with an assurance that she knew was doubtful. "No." "Times are different. Motives are different. Now, you're on the right side."

She strode over to the body, nimble feet navigating the shards of broken glass that had appeared when the Twiílek dropped the wine glass he was holding. Standing over the Twi'lek - a lioness over her prey - she relieved the crime lord of his security access card. After giving the card a quick kiss of gracious relief, she walked towards the door. Before she left, however, she paused. She turned to face the dead man, surprised at how peaceful he looked stretched out on the floor. Had all her victims look like that? So... natural? She bared her teeth at invisible enemies, whispers of her not-so-long-ago past. She could not start thinking like that again. Murder was never "natural". Lifting her hand in what would be the Twi'lek's final salute, she sent her silent apologies, and walked out the door. It she hissed shut behind her, entombing the scene in all its horror. Mara darted down the hallway, her presence only a fleeting shadow, and thumbed her Comlink. She announced the death of their victim, and ordered the flight crew to make ready the ship.

"Ah, the life of an assassin."


	2. Chapter 2

Two suns shown in the sky, radiating their beams like an archer shoots her arrows. The two suns were the enemy of this world, for they created the heat and scorched the land so that not even Kholm grass could grow upon its barren surface. Only sand carpeted it, and all manner of scum and ragged creatures infested it. Winds blew relentlessly, carrying with them bits of sand and rock that smarted the eyes and stung the skin. As a young boy once said, "If there's a bright center of the universe, you're on the planet that's farthest from."

A pair of booted feet traversed the rocky cliff line that led to Mos Eisley spaceport, leaving behind a black ribbon of footsteps – like black tacks poked into the sands. The figure wound its way steadily towards the blurred shapes of the spaceport in the distance, tracing the gray lines of smog wafting from the swoop yards and repair shops with her eyes. She bent her head down, revealing her scalp to the blistering heat in an attempt to shield her eyes from their scorching gaze. However, the waves of warmth sifting up from the sands were just as hot on her face as the sun. She scowled. She hated this planet.

Admiral Dalaa glared up at the twin suns, but even her, with all of her power, could do nothing to halt the devastating heat. "Perhaps that's what we should conquer next," she mused scornfully, "the sun." Of course she knew that she could not conquer nature, but then again, it seemed that lately, her forces could conquer nothing.

It had been nearly a year since her defeat at the Maw, when she lost the Death Star prototype, and along with it, her livelihood. And worse – her reputation. She had limped away from the wreckage with nothing but her Star Destroyer, the _Gorgon_, and the stinging laughter of a victorious Republic in her ears. Since she had escaped with the _Gorgon,_ many of her crew believed her to have gone mad - they would never say it to her face, of course. Insane or not, she and her crew landed on the god-forsaken spit of land known as Tatooine. But all was not lost. In the Maw, she had been constructing a Death Star prototype, and though it was destroyed in the battle, the plans were still intact. She smiled at the thought. Those plans were all that kept her going. For though she knew that though she was stuck at the pitted bottom of her career, the plans that were safely locked away in her personal datapad would soon buy her a passage out of the rut she was stuck in and into the war above. The Empire would rise again. She would be sure of that.

Dalaa was greeted by a sudden choking breath of stench as she entered the south gate of the space port. Hands clenched behind her back, she walked through the labyrinth of stucco and adobe buildings, winding her determined way past smoldering corpses and molding drinks as though they were commonplace decorations. Though it had taken a few weeks, Dalaa had finally learned to stop her own bile from twisting in her stomach while she lived amongst the filth. This was the city of Mos Eisley, a spaceport that served as a breeding ground for slavery, piracy, smugglers, and other villainous creatures. On either side of her, the city paid no attention to her as she paced the streets. The adobe buildings, giant loaves of burning in Tatooine's suns, had long gotten used to the woman's afternoon walks. The sifting sands beneath her feet had long gotten used to the wondering woman's brooding.

Seeing her pass, a Jawa stood from a bar table underneath the awning of Mos Eisley Cantina. Golden eyes were all that was visible from underneath his grubby cloak, and they glowed shrewdly. A vulture to the carrion, the Jawa advanced on Dalaa, producing a number of small parts from the depths of his tattered robes. He chose one, a restrainer bolt, and displayed it proudly as he spouted a string of incoherent bartering. Dalaa glowered at the mass of filth before her, and then, with a sharp push, sent the Jawa sprawling. He hit with a thud, squealing indignantly, billowing up a cloud of sand. Surprisingly, instead of simply marching off and giving the creature no second thought, Dalaa waited for something.

Staring down her nose, she snarled, "Fetch me a drink, scum."

Scurrying, the Jawa slinked back into the cantina. He debated asking Dalaa for credits to pay for her drink, but quickly decided he valued his life more than his pocket change. Dalaa swept the Jawa's drink off the table with the back of her hand, and its contents broiled as it hit the sand. Stalking the Jawa out of the corner of her eyes, she watched to be sure he went to get her drink. Satisfied that the lower classes still respected a good bout of intimidation, she picked up an overturned chair, smoothed invisible wrinkles from her uniform, and sat down. She smirked. Things were finally coming together.


End file.
